British green energy company Ecotricity recently unveiled the first high-performance electric sports car designed and built entirely in the UK! Founder Dale Vince financed the car’s design himself, spending nearly £1 million to build it. Dubbed the ‘Nemesis‘, the vehicle can accelerate from 0-100 mph in a remarkable 8.5 seconds.

The Nemesis was designed by cutting-edge British Formula One engineers and was produced in less than two years. In his brief, Dale demanded that the electric car “blow the socks off (Top Gear’s) Jeremy Clarkson and smash the stereotype of electric cars”.

The Nemesis was designed on the chassis of a second-hand Lotus Exige that was bought off eBay. It was then converted into a super green machine, fitted with 96 lithium-ion polymer cells, a completely new transmission and two motors for a total of 330bhp. It has so far reached a top speed of 135mph, but Ecotricity says it should be capable of 170mph – faster than a V12 Ferrari. The company will attempt to break the 139mph record for an electric British car currently held by Don Wales in the Bluebird Electric at a later date.

Ecotricity is responsible for manufacturing many of the UK’s wind turbines, and as a result, the Nemesis will be powered entirely by 100% green electricity made by the company’s network of 51 windmills. It can run for between 100-150 miles between charges (depending on driving style) and it can be fully charged from empty in under 2 hours from its fast charger or 8-9 hours from a regular mains supply.

Dale Vince set up Ecotricity to fight climate change and increase the security of the UK’s energy supply by building new sources of green energy. He was recently voted Britain’s leading green entrepreneur and he has repeatedly said that tackling emissions from the transport sector is vital.

“We wanted to prove electric cars can be quick to develop, beautiful to look at, cheap to run, and run entirely on wind power”, said Dale Vince. “I was not looking for something ecological, worthy and a bit self-sacrificial, far from it. I wanted to create something exotic and desirable. Something that would turn heads and challenge stereotypes.” “In the UK we drive about 200 billion miles a year, and burn more than 25 million tons of oil to do it. This is simply unsustainable. Nearly a quarter of all the car trips we make are less than two miles, and 99.6% are less than 100 miles – well within the range of electric cars already available.

“What will our transport look like, post oil and post carbon? The answer has to be wind-powered vehicles, charged using renewable energy for the ultimate in sustainability – zero pollution, from fuel sources like the wind and sun that will never run out”. “In fact, we could power all of the UK’s 30 million cars with 10,000 of today’s windmills – or just 5,000 of tomorrow’s.”